Team India has faced a sensational defeat in the T20 World Cup 2026. The current champion Indian team has suffered a crushing defeat of 76 runs at the hands of South Africa in its very first match of the Super-8 round of the tournament. In this match played on Sunday 22nd February at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, South Africa had scored a strong score of 187 runs on the basis of David Miller's excellent half-century innings. In response, the Indian batting failed miserably against the South African bowling attack including Marco Janson and the entire team collapsed for just 111 runs.
Team India's dominance was expected in this match, which was being seen as a rematch of the final of T20 World Cup 2024. When Team India bowled first after losing the toss, this appeared to be happening for a time. South Africa's top-3 batsmen had returned to the pavilion for only 20 runs in the fourth over, in which Jasprit Bumrah took 2 wickets. But after this, David Miller and Dewald Brewis formed a partnership which pushed Team India on the backfoot. Together they added 97 runs for the fourth wicket.
During this, Miller (63) completed his half-century in just 26 balls, which proved to be excellent in such conditions. However, after the dismissal of Brevis (45) in the 13th over, Team India made some comeback and stopped South Africa from 200 runs by taking wickets in between. But Tristan Stubbs (44 not out) played an excellent innings and took the team to 187 runs. Out of this, he scored 20 runs in the last over against Hardik Pandya. For Team India, Bumrah took 3 wickets and Arshdeep Singh took 2 wickets.
After this, Team India's batting came and the eyes were on Abhishek Sharma, who had failed to open the account in the last three matches. Abhishek definitely opened the account this time but even before that Team India was in trouble. This time Ishan Kishan was out for 0 in the first over itself, while Tilak Verma returned to the pavilion on the first ball of the second over. Abhishek opened his account with a four and even after this he hit 2 boundaries but the restlessness of big shots was clearly visible and he too was out in the fifth over. Tilak (1) and Abhishek (15) were made his victims by Marco Janson. Like South Africa, Team India also lost 3 wickets for 26 runs. But like Miller and Brewis, there could not be a partnership for Team India.
Captain Suryakumar Yadav (18) and Washington Sundar (11) could neither score runs quickly nor make big partnerships. Only 5 wickets fell for 51 runs in the 10th over. Both were dismissed by Corbin Bosch (2/12) in consecutive overs. After this, the entire responsibility was on Hardik Pandya and Shivam Dubey, who remained for some time. But in the 15th over, spinner Keshav Maharaj (3/24) ended the match by taking the wickets of Hardik (18), Rinku Singh (0) and Arshdeep Singh (1). After this, Shivam (42) collected some boundaries and took the team beyond 100 runs but by then it was too late. In the 19th over, Yanson (4/22) took the last 2 wickets including Dubey and ended the innings at just 111 runs.
With this, Team India had to face defeat in the T20 World Cup after 1200 days. Earlier, India's last defeat in this tournament was against England on November 10 in the semi-finals of the World Cup 2022. After this, India won 12 consecutive matches, while one was inconclusive. Not only this, India has suffered its first defeat in an ICC tournament after 826 days. After the defeat in the World Cup final on 19 November 2023, which came on this very ground, India won the titles of T20 World Cup 2024 and Champions Trophy by winning all the matches. In this World Cup also, they won 4 consecutive matches.
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